I am getting a lot of sideways looks these days. It’s not because I am wearing an eye patch, or telling people I am joining Tom Cruise’s church. I am getting all of these sideways looks because people want to know why I twitter.

My Answer? I don’t know. It just sort of is what it is, and I think that definition changes from person to person.

A lot of the questions I get are the same questions I used to get when people were first hearing about blogging. “Why do you do it?“, “I am really too busy for that.”, “But I don’t want to know what you are thinking every second of every day.”

People who “don’t get” Twitter are just as varied and unpredictable as those who do seem to get it. They aren’t idiots, just curious.

So, again, Why do I twitter? I don’t know, but I do know that it has made a small number of my relationships incredibly strong. It is how Rob and I keep in touch. Johnnie Moore may be over the ocean in the UK, but he now occupies the same “friends nearby” place in my mind that all of my Toronto and Charlottetown friends do. Tim Eby is a friend and the Chairman of a client of ours. Todd Mundt is someone I have formed a relationship with almost completely via Twitter. He’s an interesting guy, doing things I am interested in, so I follow what he does in little bits as he reveals them.

In the way that blogging used to, Twitter also cuts down on the preamble of conversation. Between Twitter and Blogging, you have a sense of who a person is and what they are about.

One thought on “If you twitter but twitter is down, did you twitter at all?”

I had a particularly good experience yesterday with Euan, Dave Pollard and Jevon.

It started with Dave and I chatting about dandelions, moved to the weather then onto whether you should wear clothes, then underwear, then Lumberjacks as in Monty Python

It took no effort – I was writing a paper but it brought sunshine into my day. I work alone at home and Twitter brings back the social part of work that you get in an office without all the bullshit and meetings

We are doing what all primates need to do to keep the tribe together – we are grooming.